Skip to main content

I > ^ v

Translation: I am greater than the highs and lows.

It's Tuesday night and I don't usually write while my blood sugar is low, but I decided I would give it a shot (ha, nice pun there April). I've been in sort of a diabetes black hole lately - I feel like I put lots of work in, but nothing great has been coming out. In fact, if you really drill down to the basics of a chronic illness, that is about the best you can hope for. Ugh, it's so depressing sometimes. Even with the best of blood sugar control there's no guarantee you will escape the wrath of "complications".

And being low is just, well, it's just the worst.

Obviously, it makes me a little agitated - these words are proof. And frustrated, and emotional. I can't put sentences together well, my mental to-do list is wiped clean, and my attention absolutely diverts from task-at-hand to survival mode. My CGM is probably vibrating...annoyingly. And that constant out-of-body reminder is incredibly infuriating while the in-body symptoms are so, so present. I get it CGM, you want me to know I'm low, but how about I just throw you across the room right now hmmmkkk?

At the same time this attention seeking bandwidth hog is jumping up and down with a hand raised and shouting something like, "hey you dummy, look at me, completely ruining whatever moment you were having!!!" I am in a complete fog and gullible enough to bend to his wishes, because, I guess my life sort of depends on it. Wow, that was a long sentence, huh? Again, I am really straining against my brain's underlying consciousness which is simply repeating "food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food" right now, similar in frequency to my two-year old's "Moanna" broken record.

So, how did I get here, to this low blood sugar, now? I ate food and bolused for it. Honestly, it was that simple. And in my haste to deal with a whiny toddler who is on the back end of a little virus and, at the same time, prepare the 4-month-old's bottle, I counted the carbohydrates incorrectly. And therefore, administered too much insulin. Which was literally fine for a solid 2 hours, but then it all fell apart - my heart sank as I shifted my attention away from tucking my daughter into bed and instead focused on those double down arrows accompanied by a tanking blood sugar reading. By the time I got downstairs, I had disconnected my pump in a feeble attempt to stop exacerbating the problem, but it was too late. I was already staring down the barrel of a 58 mg/dL.

I rummaged through the refrigerator in search of carbohydrates. Thank god for kids, fo real. I mean,
what grown adult buys apple juice for consumption?

So, here I sit, apple juice in my tummy and an ever-so-slightly UP arrow on the CGM. I'm still frustrated that diabetes kicked me in the pants, again. And now, even though I need to clean the dishes and probably start some laundry, my energy is entirely zapped. Thanks for nothing bro.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Who has two thumbs and loves comments? Nerdy April!!! Type one out and hit publish!

Popular posts from this blog

The road to curing Type 1 Diabetes

From the moment of diagnosis, the road is rough, the learning curve is steep and the stakes are literally life or death. The map is less-than-helpful - paths originating from virtually every corner, coalescing at a center point (aka "diagnosis") and bursting back outwards - some paths cross and wrap around each other but others are isolated. And even with all of these roads, most of the territory is uncharted - how did we all get here and how will we all exit? Where are the obstacles we haven't found yet? Which passage holds the key to unlocking the solution?

On any given day I feel pretty isolated with this disease - I'm the only T1D in my group at work, the only one in mission control, the only one in my family. I go through the logistics of calling insurance companies, ordering supplies, changing sites and troubleshooting malfunctions mostly on my own. Even those pesky carbs really only get counted in my brain, no group think for a meal bolus here. But there is b…
3 comments
More Nerdy This Way! »

Hot OJT

Last week I had the chance to mentor a newly certified ADCO trainee - the NASA process is called "Hot On-The-Job-Training", or Hot OJT. What makes it "hot" you ask? Well, essentially I am hands off - he is sitting at the console, working all the plan reviews and updates, making calls to other flight controllers and to the flight director, reacting to anomalies and preparing material for the shift handover. My job is to act as the fault tolerance - a backup ADCO of sorts.

Tuesday was his last official day and by Wednesday morning he was in the backroom sending commands to ISS in preparation for the docking of a three-person Soyuz.


The beauty of this system is the gradual buildup in responsibility. There is a subtle shift from student, to subject matter expert, to fresh operations trainee to advanced trainee and finally to certification and real-time operations flight controller - the process takes two years on average and is considered by many to be enough specializ…
2 comments
More Nerdy This Way! »

International Travel with Type 1 Diabetes

Whew! Back from one international trip and on to another next week! I will admit my eyes roll every time I get the "we're gunna need to pat you down" talk at TSA, but international travel is a whole different animal. I thought it might be fun to see what goes through my brain and into my bags for these types of trips!


I wouldn't be a NASA Flight Controller if I wasn't good at planning, the key to international travel as a T1D is PLANNING!

3 months prior

Assess supplies. Mine come in 90-days supplies so I like to inventory at least 3 months prior and make a plan to order more early if the trip is going to coincide with the end of my 90-day stock. In my experience supply companies are usually pretty good about adjusting orders as needed if you tell them the reason for the early request - just mention you have an international trip coming up and want to make sure to have plenty of supplies (and backups!) in time. Request a loaner insulin pump. It's likely the comp…
2 comments
More Nerdy This Way! »
01 09 10